Delegate Curt Anderson (D-Baltimore) has introduced legislation, House Bill 1453, that seeks to make Maryland the third state to legalize and regulate the adult use of marijuana

House Bill 1453 would create a system to regulate and tax cannabis in a manner similar to how the state handles alcohol. It would instruct the Maryland comptroller to license marijuana retail stores, wholesale facilities and testing facilities and apply an excise tax of $50 per ounce on wholesale sales, with proceeds going to fund treatment programs to prevent alcohol, tobacco and drug abuse.

This is an issue very, very close to my heart. As many of you know, I suffer from extreme chronic nausea, sometimes unable to eat even a single meal a day. Although I am on a nausea medication with a very high potency, even when it removes the sick feeling I still don’t find food attractive (instead, it just reminds me how I’m going to feel when the med wears off). I have used cannabis in the past to great success; but since I’m beholden to a pain contract in order to obtain opiates, I am randomly drug tested with the risk of being thrown out of the program with no more than a single month’s prescriptions (and no support for withdrawal, which can in some cases be lethal). Therefore, I can no longer take the risk of using an herbal supplement that I *know* works, not just for my nausea, but for my pain, insomnia, and neurological symptoms like tremors and dystonia.

Even though this bill isn’t for legalizing medical marijuana per se, by decriminalizing it completely, there’s strong evidence that my pain doctor cannot remove me from the program for engaging in legal usage of herbal supplements, as long as they aren’t contraindicated with my current regimen. And even though it’s risky to admit, my pain doctor has, on more than one occasion, made vague references that he wishes this were available to me, but that the program cannot condone the use of illegal substances. So by decriminalizing the sale, possession, and usage of cannabis, you’re not only helping our economy, freeing up our police force to focus on violent crime, and legalizing access to a substance that does less harm to the human body over time than either alcohol or tobacco; you’re also de facto allowing patients access to a powerful supplement that has been proven to be of aid to persons with MS, AIDS/HIV, cerebral palsy, and many other conditions. Because after all, if doctors can’t deny you service because you use legal intoxicants like alcohol or tobacco, then my fear, and the fear of many others in programs that rely on urinalysis to gain access to treatment, would be alleviated for good.

Even if you, personally, don’t enjoy cannabis, and wish that others wouldn’t use it, that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be available to the thousands and/or millions of adults who use it responsibly already. There are so many worse crimes we could be spending the millions of dollars we do on enforcing a law so easily circumvented. And the mandatory minimums are a joke; people with small amount of cannabis get longer prison sentences than rapists or child molester. It’s ridiculous, and has to stop.

If you live in MD, click on this link to send a message to your legislators about this issue. If you don’t, you can put my zip code into the form – 21742 – (it will ask for my street name, if you need it email/FB/Tweet me and let me know) and just tell them about me and my story. It has been proven that legislators vote their conscious in the absence of communication from their constituents; but vote differently if the people inform them they feel strongly one way or the other. So even though it’s a little internet form letter, it still gives them an additional push towards voting the way the people want.

Thank you. I really mean it. Even if you just read this, now you know my story and hopefully that will urge you to action.